Out in the boondocks

Here I am, out in the boondocks. What do you do when you have tons of great ideas, but never enough time to implement any of them? I read blogs like scripting news and others, and , you know, it's like watching the party going on while you are standing outside in the parking lot looking in the window. In the rain. In the middle of the night. *sigh*

OReilly CodeZoo

This appears to be a new repository for reusable Java components. I would expect them to expand to include other languages soon.

Personal Note: I've been completely bogged down with life and work - I hope to return to my daily posting real soon now.

OpenLaszlo Planet

Hrmm is it PlanetLaszlo? OpenLaszlo Planet? Planet OpenLaszlo? It's all that and more! *chuckle* Check out a great growing news portal for all things Laszlo.

Javascript Gamelib

This is a revision (by Brent Silby)of Scott Porter's excellent Gamelib - a library of 2d animation and other interesting game features done completely in javascript. You owe it to yourself if you are a js developer to download and try out this library. It's also GPL'd so you can use it in your own projects if you like.

Also check out Brent Silby's site for many excellent examples of this library in action.

Fate - a light rpg from Wildtangent

This game came to me as a complete suprise. Here is a light ("casual") rpg with some innovative elements, such as a pet that can carry stuff, and transform into powerful monsters to fight for you.

I've had qualms about installing WildTangent stuff - even though I've been following WildTangent for years -- back when it was just a 3d engine and some scripting. The main reason being that some folks consider it's gameplay tracking as a form of spyware. All it appears to do, as far as I know, is call back to tell WT how often I've played the game. No big - especially when games like Half-Life do the same thing.

Anyway - I think this game is quite fun, and I've heard that it's also "Moddable" meaning you can create add-ons for it. I've seen a screenshot of a character holding dual light sabers -- so perhaps this is true. If you imagine a game that's a cross between Darkstone and Fable, you might get a bit of an idea what this game is about.

Disney's Virtual Magic Kingdom - flash mmorpg

Looks like Disney is taking a page out of such games as Ragnarok Online or Dark Ages to create a flash - based mmorpg. It's offline for me right now (1am) but tomorrow I'm going to check it out - looks very interesting!

Drawing with Canvas in Firefox

Canvas is going to be the "killer app" for Firefox. Get a head start on developing interesting applications using Canvas.